The system may be used in somewhat heat and or sound sensitive situations, so I'm a little hesitant to go with this case since it since it only allows for 1U PSUs. (It's not clear what parts can be removed; theoretically a 2U could fit with modifications.)Does anyone have comments or recommendations on rackmount cases or 1U power supplies?

I'd think that'd be your main determiner for what to buy. With rackmount servers it seems like the PSU is often designed for high airflow and not silence. Now that model is double-wide so it may not be so loud. I'm more experienced with thin ones designed to be hot-swapped. And in my experience the hot-swap 2U are as loud as the hot-swap 1U. Again, you'll be looking for a different type of PSU, so my experiences may not be relevant.

The PC would be used by itself or in a portable rackmount case ("flight case") where the back/bottom and front/top would be removed. My idea was to always use a flight case for transport.

Those recommended 1U power supplies seem outdated with 8-pin power connectors. (The computer case datasheet even references Pentium 4 and Athlon 64.) Here's a variety I've been looking through :http://www.directron.com/rackmountpsu.html

As for case fans, there is a 80 mm intake at the front and two 40 mm exhausts at the back, in addition to any in the PSU.

Yeah but the PSU don't care about other fans in the system. If it's designed for a typical server environment, it'll assume it needs to exhaust heat as quickly as possible. You may want to look around here:

Poking around SPCR's forum I found out there were some fanless 120 watt models -- just can't actually find any of them now for sale.Another possibility is a picoPSU which allegedly can go up to 160 watts; too bad there doesn't seem to be any external power bricks that do more than 90 reliably. That said, I'm not too keen on a [mostly] external power supply, nor that sort of wattage on a tip-sleeve plug. [edit]Just realized my laptop's brick is rated for 90 watts. I guess I'm just being overly paranoid[/edit]Also, all the components seems to want more than twice the wattage on the PSU as the sum of the whole system would be. Is that betting on very poor efficiency and or degradation of the power supply?

You reaaaally don't want to be looking at any kind of rackmount equipment unless you intent to store it in a rack... a rack in a soundproofed, or very remote room to be specific.Server kit is built with the exact opposite aim as HTPC kit... fan noise is irrelevant, and it'll sound like a jet taking off.

Stick to conventional systems if you're going to be using it anywhere within earshot. There are case options for just about every imaginable application, almost all will use 80mm fans as a minimum, and the majority will cost less.

The whole point of rackmount is to have easily manageable server rooms where large quantities of equipment need to be run, swapped out and generally maintained. If you don't have a server room, there's just no benefit.

I'm starting to get the impression that making my own case would be a lot simpler.

Here's a general idea of what I was thinking of:http://www.rackmount-computers.com/tran ... ation.htmlIt seems like everyone's solution is 3U or 4U tall cases. I really don't have the convenience of extra space in some scenarios.I probably could modify the 2U case I was looking at to accept a 2U power supply, but how far does one go before just starting from scratch becomes more viable?

What is it you're planning to do with this system, and what hardware spec are you planning to build into it?

If you're looking at a portable rackmount system, it sounds like you're aiming to build some super-high-end dual-core workstations, or hugely disk-dense file servers, (or both) but still have them reasonably convenient for traveling.

If you're not building that, why do you need anything rackmount? If you want a reasonably powerful computer that's also portable, why not a top-end quad-core laptop? The i7-3610QM is the exact same piece of silicon as a 3770k based desktop computer.

Even if you need desktop components, why not get a small-form-factor case and build something like that. You can fit a laptop in carry-on luggage... you could easily fit an SFF case, or even a moderately sized HTPC case into a standard suitcase, suitably padded. I've taken a SIlverstone LC10-E across the Atlantic with me (padded out with socks and tshirts! ). You could even mod a suitcase with a proper dense foam lining or something.

If you're looking to take a high-end visual effects studio around with you, I can understand the need for a rackmount transit case... but otherwise, I don't quite understand what you're trying to do.